Gif. Jif. No matter your pronunciation preference, it’s easy to create that word using a variety of apps and services. Since I started working at Lifehacker, I’ve found that it’s sometimes easier to show, not tell, in the form of a little animated image that demonstrates some key feature or setting. Consequently, I’ve…

Everyone’s using the same app to check Facebook, send tweets, or take pictures. Boring. This App is Fire is here to take a look at some of the best hidden gems in every app store you can find, from much-needed utilities and services to polished productivity tools. Think killer apps, but with less murderous intent. Got…

iOS/Android: Are you a fan of swipe-friendly keyboards on your smartphone? Then you’ve probably heard of Google’s Gboard, the third-party keyboard that lets you both swipe to spell as well as search the web. With the latest update, you can create GIFs from the keyboard using your smartphone camera, and send them…

Snapchat may have invented the Stories format, but it didn’t take long for the rest of the internet to steal the idea. Now even Imgur, the meme haven originally created as an image-hosting service for Reddit, is offering its own take on Stories with a new feature called Snacks.

Instagram is a great place to share all kinds of fun visuals—except for your favorite GIFs. Instagram won’t let you upload them. Fortunately, the Giphy app will let you do exactly that right on your smartphone.

Something I like is popular now, and that is bad. Thanks to GIF databases like Giphy, the reaction GIF, once a careful and elaborate art form, is now a bland mass market dominated by a handful of outlet-approved celebrity faces. Today Giphy sped up the medium’s slide into mediocrity by adding view counts to GIFs from…

Knowing at least a few phrases in American Sign Language is always useful and there are few videos that are a more popular means of learning it than the Sign with Robert series. Giphy has teamed up with Sign with Robert to put together a ton of animated GIFs to help you learn a variety of phrases.

If you cut your chops on the web during the era of hand-coded HTML websites, then you definitely know that the most important part of a good site are the GIFs. How else would you notify your readers that your site is still “under construction”? GifCities helps you find those GIFs from the old World Wide Web.

Opinion: Futurama is clearly superior to The Simpsons. Fact: You can find all the life lessons and advice you’ll ever need buried in between this show’s many, many cancellations. Today, we’re going to learn about life from the greatest men and women of the 31st century. Also Bender.

iOS/Android/Facebook Messenger: Poncho wakes you gently with music that changes with the weather, offers a simple, useful forecast for the day, provides transit and traffic info, and helps you get through the day with a few GIFs and some jokes—and a cartoon kitty.

So much can be said with a GIF. It can be an exaggerated reaction, a visual analogy to something said in a conversation, or simply a non sequitur to punctuate online communication. But usually it’s just a funny animation.

Chrome: Google Image Search is a pretty great way to find the right GIF when you need it, but the results don’t actually animate unless you select each GIF at once. The GoogleGIFs Chrome extensions fixes this.

OS X: GIF is a simple, free app for the Mac that lets you search for the perfect GIF at the perfect time, get a link to paste it into a chat or email, or download it to your computer. If you communicate with GIFs (and honestly, who doesn’t at this point), it saves you the effort of Googling around for the perfect one.

Chrome: I love a good GIF party as much as anyone, but if I’m on a page with a constantly looping animation, it gets on my nerves pretty quickly. Google just released a Chrome extension that allows you to block animations entirely, or set them to play only once.